The root cause of Rohingya persecution

Rohingya stranded off the coast of Thailand in May. Photo: Christophe Archambault/AFP.

How religious based ethno-nationalism is being used to oppress the minority group in Myanmar.

The mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar and their subsequent plight on the open ocean occupied the world’s attention for much of May.

Unfortunately, public and media attention was short lived and it is now back to business as usual.

While the media highlighted the dire situation of the Rohingya, it failed to identify the root cause of their persecution – religious based ethno- nationalism. It has made the Rohingya the most persecuted people in the world.

It is also the root cause of discrimination and the vulnerability of Myanmar’s Muslims and poses a serious challenge to the country’s democratic reforms.

Religious based ethno-nationalism is a mind-set instilled by successive dictators in Myanmar. It has been used to maintain power by gaining the trust and support of the majority at the expense of minorities.

It is a useful tool for the divide and rule strategy so popular with dictators. Thein Sein’s government has utilised it to foster anti-Muslim sentiment and institutionalise the persecution of Muslims, something which distracts from criticism of and anger at his government’s performance.

This mind-set has resulted in and been strengthened by inflammatory anti-Muslim rhetoric. For example, a popular claim in Myanmar is that Buddhism is threatened by a densely populated Muslim Bangladesh whose population wish to flood into Myanmar.

However, facts show that no threat really exists. Unfortunately the portrayal of Rohingya as intruders from Bangladesh has successfully inflamed hatred against Muslims.

Religious ethno-nationalism has also seen a move to remove the physical, legal and historical existence of the Rohingya from Myanmar. Systematic and institutionalised persecution has been used to achieve this. This by definition is genocide.

The annihilation of physical existence has been practiced through anti-Muslim pogroms, establishing discriminatory citizenship laws, creating dire living conditions, persecution, and targeting by security forces; tactics that are all deliberately designed to force individuals from their ancestral land.

Rohingya in Northern Arakan are living in an open prison, particularly in Aung Mingalar Ghetto in Sittwe (the capital city of Rakhine State). Their basic human rights are violated on a daily basis. For example, travel is restricted and permission is needed from the authorities to marry. Failure to comply, results in a long jail terms. Dire living conditions are a strong push factor for migrating Rohingya.

Health care services in Northern Arakan are appalling. According to a 2012 report from Action Contre La Faim, child morbidity is shockingly high.

The report also emphasised that there are only 42 nurses available for the whole of Northern Arakan meaning an average of one nurse per 18,400 people. Maungdaw Township has only one nurse for 58,000 people.

In contrast, the national average is one nurse for 304 people. Overall 21 Rural Health Centres are available and each centre covers a population of 38,000 people.

Rohingya also suffer direct persecution in the form of arbitrary arrest, torture, kidnapping and extrajudicial killing. In many cases, victim’s relatives are extorted and have to pay a ransom to have their loved ones released. Under such circumstances, the perilous sea journey offers a higher chance of survival.

The UNHCR reported that in 2014 some 150,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring countries with a further 25,000 escaping in the first quarter of 2015. Although 8,000 Rohingya refugees have been saved by Indonesia and Malaysia, where should the other 1.2 million Rohingya go and reside?

The persecution of this minority group has a long and dark history in Myanmar. In the past, lawmakers and historians collaborated to destroy the legal status and historical evidence of Rohingya people. This historical elimination is ongoing.

Rohingya and other ethnic Muslims were recognised as natives of Myanmar in the 1973 census, which recognised 143 ethnic groups in the country. Later the 1982 citizenship law delisted Muslims from ethnic groups with the exception of the Kaman.

The controversial 1982 citizenship law defined citizens as being Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Burman, Mon, Rakhine, Shan and other ethnic groups that settled within the borders of Myanmar before 1823.

At the same time, Rakhine historians claim that Rohingya were slaves settled in Myanmar after the first Anglo-Burmese War in 1824 and are thus foreigners. The citizenship law and the assertion of historians is nothing more than institutionalised persecution with its origin in religious based ethno-nationalism (or Burmanisation).

Although solving the Rohingya crisis is complex and has various elements, addressing anti-Muslim sentiment is vital. The solution for the Rohingya crisis is unfeasible without addressing religious based ethno-nationalist bigotry in Myanmar.

Although interfaith events are being carried out in many places across the country, the idea of coexistence has not reached the grass-roots population. On the other hand, inflammatory hate speech, discrimination and violence are persistent with government support.

The international community needs to use anti- Muslim sentiment as a benchmark to measure the reforms and put pressure on Myanmar’s rulers – including the threat of sanctions.

They must also stress that Myanmar’s leaders are not exempt from their obligations of upholding fundamental human rights under customary international law and are liable to face consequences in the future.

Kyaw Win is Director of Burma Human Rights Network and Secretary of the Burmese Muslim Association.

8 Responses

It’s a killing two birds with one stone strategy – a mass exodus of the undesirables as perceived by the host society, and the undermining of the electorate’s support for ASSK/NLD. The Rohingya simply fit the bill by their own past and present behaviour.

A difficult conundrum for human rights concerns which the world barring the Umma will continue to pay lip service to but happily carry on doing business with the arch manipulators in the military rulers of Burma now respectable enough to be no longer mentioned in the British parliament on the list of states inc. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Hong Kong) that the West should not continue to sell arms to on account of their human rights violations.

Anti-Chinese riots in Mandalay still an option in a crisis as it has proved really useful in the past. These guys aren’t stupid when it comes to their own survival, but regarding the public as stupid will backfire on them in due course.

Wirathu’s message that the country will be overrun by Muslims if ASSK/NLD wins the elections is done to death.

A new diversion that calls for a new group of scapegoats may soon be indicated. Remember the renewed conflict with the Kokang deliberately misrepresented as a Chinese ‘invasion’ earned them some rare praise, never mind that they themselves helped raise a monster that had shaken off the Burmese communist leash, with or without China’s backing.

Of course “Phone Kyar Shin” (like a character in a Chimese martial arts novel) was sitting honourable member of Parliament before they decided to use the 2IC to stab him as it turned out very clumpsily and sloppishly. Now it is also interesting.

When there were tens of thousnds of “Burmese” youth died during the fight with KIA before internationally condonned/ supported/ encouraged air attackes on own citizens subdued them back to Laiza, as such many deaths this time round with the Chinese did not bat an eyelid. Women in Burma now should be congratulated for breeding more to get replacements in time.

I have found no evidence during my research into past censuses that the 1973 Census included “Rohingya” as an ethnic or racial designation.

Kyaw Win would do us an invaluable service if he could recount the inside story of how “Rohingya” eventually came to be chosen by the Muslim elite in Arakan as their designation, from among an imaginative array of “R” names with varying etymologies which was openly discussed by Muslim scholars in Burmese publications in the 1950s and 1960s, no doubt as possible replacements for the British-era designations “Chittagonian” and “Bengali”.

In the 1983 Census most Muslims in Arakan were unceremoniously and quite wrongly listed as of “Bangladeshi” ethnic origin.

It is of interest in this context that the important 22-point memorandum submitted by the “Arakanese Muslim community” in October 1960 to the official Consultantive Committee looking into the matter of separate statehood for Arakan nowhere referred to their wish to be designated “Rohingya” or any other such name, but asked only that all Muslims now resident in Arakan should be granted citizenship. This memorandum was published in “The Nation” of 27 October 1960, alongside commentary.

I’m getting tired of this boat people. Well folks, when we went from Mawlamyine to Myeik, my family took ships in conditions far worse than these Bengalis were taking. When my uncle went to Malaysia after 2000s US sanctions crippled his restaurant near fabric factory, he was nearly killed inside Thai forests. Only my mother’s dogged effort led to his release. Many who traveled with him were killed by malaria, ransom-seeking rebels, and brutal bosses. There are now 2 million Burmese working in slave-like conditions. An estimated six dozens of Burmese have been beheaded by Bengali gangs in Malaysia. Twelve Burmese killed by Bengali in Indonesia. The murderers received 2 months sentence. Nobody complained.

When these boat people arrive developed countries like Malaysia, EU, and US, they tell “harrowing tales”. But Australia makes an agreement with Cambodia and sends these boat people to Cambodia, they ask to come back to “persecuted” Myanmar to try their luck again. Their motto is, “Let’s rock on the boat until we reach Europe!”

“None of the four resettled people wanted to stay in Cambodia. They expected to get a lump sum of at least $10,000, but that was not what happened.”

No highly indignant/ outraged and always sulking “Champions” of the Rohingya- be they themselves “Rohingya” or Truth and Just loving lily whites- was harmed the slightest duing the production of these funny tales.